Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Russell
This is one more example of the chicken and egg problem that e-books struggle from. What will break the barrier? Will it be the arrival of inexpensive and easy to use book reading devices, will it be a push by publishers, or will it be customer outcry for more e-books?
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I'm betting the barrier will be broken by
one book. Mind you, it'll have to be a damned popular book... but it'll be one that will only be released as an e-book, and it will turn out to be
so frikkin' popular that people will be downloading it into anything they have, and recommending it to everyone they know, and even their pets. Someone in the e-book field will alert the news media, someone will note the sales numbers as being as high as best seller list numbes, they'll say so, and the publishers will say: "C**p."
(Note: I started to call this the frikkin' "good" book, but halfway through my dialog, I changed it to be "popular." Because we all know, the popular books aren't always the good ones...
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At that point, best-seller lists will include any e-books that match the sales of the first, or at least match the sales figures of any print book. The publishers won't do it... the media will force it on them.